The Official Review of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2003 (2003)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Sports	Main Menu Introduction Main Menu Audio & Animation Notes-Tournament Statistics Featurette-Ricky Ponting; Brett Lee; Andrew Symonds; Andrew Bichel Featurette-Marvan Atapattu; Chaminda Vaas; Sourav Ganguly Featurette-Sachin Tendulkar; James Anderson; Vasbert Drakes Featurette-Shane Bond; Herschell Gibbs; John Davison
Rating
Year Of Production	2003
Running Time	174:37 (Case: 317)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL Dual Disc Set	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	None Given
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Ricky Ponting Brett Lee Andrew Bichel Andrew Symonds Marvan Atapattu Chaminda Vaas Sourav Ganguly Sachin Tendulkar James Anderson Vasbert Drakes Shane Bond Herschelle Gibbs John Davison
Case	Amaray-Transparent-S/C-Dual
RPI	$49.95	Music	None Given

    This is the companion title to the single disc release that showcased Australia's performance at the World Cup of Cricket in 2003. You can take a look at the review of that title if you wish. It has the rather long title of One Day Wonders-Review Of Australia's Win At The ICC Cricket World Cup.

     The eighth ICC Cricket World Cup ran for 44 days in February and March and was hosted by South Africa, with games also played in Zimbabwe and Kenya. The tournament got underway with the opening ceremony in Cape Town on Saturday, February 8 and proceeded through 54 games to the final which was held in Johannesburg on March 23. This disc is not dedicated to Australia, though considering they went all the way and won the cup, they do feature prominently throughout. It offers pretty much equal coverage of all 14 teams who competed for the right to declare themselves World Cup Champions.

    All 54 games get at the very least a couple of highlights, though obviously some of the less interesting and downright dull games get only passing coverage. The more interesting or critical matches between the top teams get the most coverage. Lesser games where something interesting happened also enjoy some substantial coverage.

    The same unnamed narrator from the other title does the job of keeping the highlights flowing and offering brief introductions and summaries to most of the games. Between his talking we are simply left at the mercy of the match-day commentators and some brief player interviews after the matches.

    The title is certainly comprehensive in its coverage, clocking in at just under three hours in duration. It is also perhaps a little dull and repetitive at times. Maybe because I saw so much of it on television so recently, I'm just a little cricketed out at the present.

    A worthy record of the event that should satisfy cricket buffs no end, but others will find better entertainment elsewhere.

Video

    This transfer is presented in an aspect of 1.33:1. It is not 16x9 enhanced.

    While of similar quality to the other disc in this series, I was a little disappointed with some obvious compression artefacts visible throughout much of the transfer, most noticeably in the second half. But overall, the actual transfer is still quite pleasing with rich, vibrant colours and a consistent level of sharpness. Again the lack of a widescreen picture is slightly disappointing considering much of the sport we now see in this country is in the 1.78:1 ratio. Obviously the images were provided by the host broadcaster in South Africa and widescreen may simply not have been available.

    Much like the other title, some of the wide angle and faster moving pan shots reveal scattered aliasing, mostly minor in nature and almost exclusively centred on the boundary ropes around the grounds. It is seldom bothersome. There is no low level noise. Colours are really quite nice, with vibrant and rich images, most notably on the players' uniforms. I saw no evidence of any colour problems such as bleeding or oversaturation.

    Unfortunately with nearly three hours of footage on this disc, the compression appears to have suffered. It is most notable in the latter half of the program, with the last hour being especially bad. Whenever the camera either zooms up close on the players and the depth of field is extremely narrow, the blurred background is consistently displayed as a series of blocks. This also crops up on several occasions when long range crowd shots are shown. Slightly disappointing and most likely a result of trying to squeeze three hours of vision onto a dual layered disc.

    There are no subtitles.

    This is a dual layered disc, but I was unable to pick the layer change.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There is only one audio track available, this being a Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo soundtrack.

    There isn't a whole lot for the audio to do really. There is a bit of narration which is handled effortlessly with good dynamics and fidelity. The rest of the audio is dominated by the match commentators, the players, and the crowd and sounds much as it was when shown on television. Dialogue is clear and concise at all times. Audio sync is an issue with any of the brief interview segments.

    The only negative I can offer is the repetitive use (or over-use) of the World Cup theme song which is played every time a wicket is taken. With lots of wickets in highlights package, it gets trotted out many times. After three hours I was well and truly sick of it.

    There is no surround or subwoofer use.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Notes

    A whole swag of pages detailing various statistics. The results of every 2003 World Cup match are here, plus various individual records, such as leading batsmen, wicket takers, and catches taken. There are also some all time World Cup records in the batting and bowling departments.

DISC 2

Featurette - 13 Highlights Packages

    Disc two contains a series of 13 highlights segments dedicated to some of the individual star performances of the World Cup. All the footage is presented in the same aspect ratio and audio as the main disc. Most of the highlights on offer are shown on the main disc, though in the case of the batting performances there is considerably more comprehensive coverage here. In order and with duration the following players are featured:

• Ricky Ponting, Australia - (12:37)
• Brett Lee, Australia - (14:35)
• Andrew Symonds, Australia - (6:20)
• Andrew Bichel, Australia - (10:50)
• Marvan Atapattu, Sri Lanka - (5:33)
• Chaminda Vaas, Sri Lanka - (8:11)
• Sourav Ganguly, India - (5:18)
• Sachin Tendulkar, India - (6:35)
• James Anderson, England - (5:56)
• Vasbert Drakes, West Indies - (6:03)
• Shane Bond, New Zealand - (5:36)
• Herschelle Gibbs, South Africa - (5:13)
• John Davison, Canada - (8:42)

    Despite the presence of Canada in the tournament, I was unable to find any reference to this disc in Region 1.

    A comprehensive, though at times a little repetitive, look at the World Cup of Cricket in 2003. It is simply a highlights package. Expect no in depth analysis on the game or detailed interviews with any of the participants.

    The video quality is overall quite good, with sharp, colourful and vibrant images. The problem of excessive blocking due to over compression in the latter half of the program is disappointing and a legacy of three hours of footage on one disc.

    The audio does the job with little fanfare, but also no problems.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall